I Ain’t Afraid of No AR Ghosts!

This past weekend, Sony announced their brand new venture into the world of augmented reality (AR) games: Ghostbusters World. As far as comparisons go, think of a mobile game like Pokémon Go! but with proton packs and ghosts rather than pokeballs and Pokémon.

I gave Pokémon Go! a shot back in the summer of 2016, not too long after its original release. I played it regularly for a couple months and had a pretty good time with it. It was interesting to compare the availability of different Pokémon at different places. I remember that we traveled a little that summer, and I was able to pick up a handful of new Pokémon that I couldn’t find in my hometown. I managed to level up my character in to the double-digits, thought I was not very good at doing things in the game other than catching Pokémon, like hatching new ones, feeding current ones, and battling. But it was fun for the short time I played it.

My interest in the game dwindled once I realized just how much of my phone’s battery and data the game was consuming. Not only that, but as the months went on, it became harder and harder to connect to the game’s servers (just in my experience). Eventually I was done with Pokémon Go!, and I uninstalled it despite the fact that the game received a few updates by then.

Circling back to the present day, I have to admit that Ghostbusters World looks as intriguing, if not more so. I don’t have any nostalgic connections with Pokémon, but I certainly do with Ghostbusters. As a kid, it was one of my most favorite movies. (I daresay that I even enjoyed Ghostbusters II a little more.) And I loved the Saturday morning cartoon that followed. The thought of zapping and collecting my own set of ghosts seems just too good a notion to pass up. Plus, it’s nice to see another AR game enter the ranks. I like the idea of “playing” within one’s own space, even if that space might be a little bit…haunted. Will there likely be the matters of phone battery and data issues? My gut says yes, because AR game require quite a bit of both, but I suppose we’ll cross that bridge if/when we get to it.

While it looks like Ghostbusters World might still be in development (some pre-alpha gameplay is shown on the game’s official Facebook page), the trailer promises that we’ll be able to get the game on our mobile devices sometime later this year.

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Pokemon non-Go!-ing aside, am I looking forward to Ghostbusters World? I gotta admit that I am, kinda, sorta. I mean, is it better to find Slimer or Pikachu in your office? I’m not sure there’s a good answer to that. Either way, check out this bit over on Virtual Bastion for more.